Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER & ADVERTISER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1873. "MEASURES. NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 305, 19 November 1873, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER & ADVERTISER WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1873. "MEASURES. NOT MEN."

Politics is Mr. "Vogel's business. It is to him what a sheep ran is to a squatter. He is a patriot by profession, a philanthrophiat by trade. Red tape and votes are his stock-in-trade. The gratification of ambition is his object. Well and good, if his realisation of his object is in accordance ■with the good of tie colony. There is a great deal of nonsense written about posterity. Our views of worldly affairs need not extend beyond three score and ten years. Let our great grand children take oare of themselves, just in the same way as our great grand parents took care of themselves. In the main, Mr. Vogel's colonial policy is the right one. It would be far better for us if his policy were dictated by proper motives ; but, practically con* sidered, for tha next twenty years, at all events, the oause is of slight moment, provided it produces the desired effect. In the past, "the wretched past," under Mr. Stafford's and Weld's regime, the noble savage always occupied the foreground of the picture, and yet, even in that past which resouuded so much with the so-called philanthropic quack nostrums of philo-Maoridom, very few laws were passed which placed the two races on a footing of friendship. Now, we have a Native Lands Court, which substitutes for the quibbles of mere special pleading, the equity dealings of a Court of Conscience. Now, we have an expensive " sugar and flour " policy, which is, however, infinitely superior to a policy of " war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt," for with the sugar and flour policy we have a policy which plants the telegraph post in the heart of the Maori war path, which will substitute the peacefnl railway whistle for the shriek of the painted savage. With this peaceful state of things, the name and the deeds of Mr. Julius Yogel will descend to a grateful posterity. One most important bill was thrown out of the Legislative Council during last session. We allude to the Provincial Loans Empowering Bill. That measure provided that each province could, on its own liability, contract loans within New Zealand and Australia, for harbor works, reservoirs, schoolSj reclatnmation, bridges, and branch railways and tramways. The loans for such works were to be appropriately secured. For example, a bridge loan would be secured on the tolls, and a harbor loan on the jetty dues, and a railway or tramway liability, on traffic receipts, and laud revenue. This bill was violently, and very unanimously, opposed in the Coun cil. Jts opponents argued that mere provincial liability is, and would be, a farce. The advocates of the measure replied that in the bill a clause would appear which would repudiate colonial liability, and which would fix the rate of "interest at six per cent. To this reply, the answer was, that while the colony was borrowing at 4| per cent, in England, the provinces would be borrowing at 6 per cent. , which shewed that colonial was far cheaper than provincial borrowing. The provincialists might have again replied that the 6 per cent rate was the maximum, not the minimum for provincial lenders. But the Centralists were not to be defeated by ready replies. They argued that competition would, of itself, tend to increase the rate of interest, and that the competition of the provinces against the colony must injure colonial securities in the English market, to which the would-be provincial borrowers replied, " How can that be so, when the Bill limits the provincial loan market to the Australian colonies ? " But the "Lords" were not to be defeated by mere local theory ; they relied on their own personal financial experience. The Councillors said, "We feel convinced that provincial debentures will find their way to the London market, just as assuredly as a metal finds its way to a river bottom, in accordance with the inevitable law of gravitation ) and when the provincial debentures are in the London market, colonial securities for our 10/ ins for public -works and immigration must be injuriously influenced* ** This argument closed the debate, and the various Loan Bills, including the Parental Bill, eight in number, were successively thrown out The arguments against the Provincial Loans Empowering 15111, reduced into theorems, are as follow: — (1.) Provincial liability is a farce ; (2.) It prolongs provincialism. In common with the great Thomas Carlyle, we hate shams, and we believe that mere provincial liability, if tested in a court of law, would prove to be a complete farce ; and we believe that the Premier aided its adoption. His doing so, although apparently very statesmanlike, was in reality a retreat, not an advance movement, and was caused partly by .imaginary anticipation, and partly by the pressure of a strong but venal body of politicians, led by either impecunious or by "bloated" Superintendant capitalists. Extremes meet. Superintendent Macandrew of wealthy Otago, and the almost (politically) insolvent Superintendents of Wellington and Taranaki, agreed, for once, to saorifice genuine financial philosophy for mere expediency, whereby the provincial public creditor _ would probably be led by the nose through more than on« law suit on t&e question of ,

disputed liability. The Loan Bill referred to) practically revived the provincial system. Now, ' theories apart, all experience shews that, as a rile, legisla* tion on all but petty questions should be confined to one general parliament, and loans should be, in order to avoid disputed liability j confined to one central Government. If a division of labor in mere talk is an evil, it is a twofold evil when division of responsibility is introduced into financial receipts and expenditure. Administration should pervade the length and breadth of the land ; but the legislation which guides it should, as a rule, emanate from one central parliament, consisting of two chambers. Our aim should be to consolidate, not to disintegrate. Minute distribution of responsibility should be an indispensable necessity, not an enthusiastic choic9 ; for it must be always borne in mind that representative government is only a substitute for a wise and humane despotism, and the whole tendency of government is towards oligarchy, that is, the government of the Many by the Few, Are the •'few" wise, or "otherwise?" This is the only question that remains for solution. " Worth makes the [States] man, The want of it * the fellow,' All the rest's But leather and prunella."